How Language Starts


Here is something I jotted down yesterday:
It’s 22:59 hours into the day. I have travelled only from home to Baby’s house, back to home, and one return journey to Plymouth. The sofa holds me in a comfortable scoop, while fire blazes in the wood burner. A faint crusted badge of Baby sick adorns my jumper. Her best trick today was dragging a flannel from the clothes airer to slap my face in a vigorous replication of the act of washing. Also, we have danced, so, whatever else has happened, the day has not been wasted. Baby babbles in sound, we don’t yet share a spoken language. When she is tired she rests on my lap, head lolling into the curve of my shoulder. A bubble of sick pops out. ‘Uh-oh,’ she smirks, eyes closing. 



Comments

  1. Mary Aalgaard5 April 2012 at 22:23

    Oh, sweet baby images. I think of language and how we can communicate without words.

    Play off the Page

    ReplyDelete
  2. MOV7 April 2012 at 01:21

    Hello Lily,

    Great post, I think I just found my new favorite blog. Love the way you write!

    I discovered your site through the A to Z Challenge and am now a follower, but not in a stalker-ish way with binoculars and night vision goggles or anything like that ….

    Feel free to take a peek at my blog too if you have time. I am writing with a travel theme:

    http://wordcut.blogspot.com

    best,
    MOV

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lisa Southard7 April 2012 at 10:47

    Thank you MOV, happy to entertain- I have visited both of your blogs, they are both brilliantly witty and well written, so I decided to follow both, also without night vision goggles (although they would be useful when playing the tooth fairy I think!) :-)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thank you for reading my words- my chance to read yours here:

Popular posts from this blog

Yes!

Image
June’s weather has been issued in short spells: sunny-dry, sunny-drizzle, cloudy, downpour, rainbows, humid, might-rain-might-be-blowy. Washing is on the line to dry or to get an extra rinse. Roses bloom, and when I get a chance to check the polytunnel there are tomato plants rising, the strawberries and nasturtiums are zooming over the path, the lovage has doubled. When I get to the land, with Mr, Old Dog, and grandchildren 6 & 7 (aged 4 and 3 respectively) there are tracks through it. This is magic to all of us: we, the adults who instructed this progress and fully expected to see it, and the children to whom this is pure surprise. Knowledge is no impediment to murmuring ‘wow’ and savouring the press of our boots into bare earth as we wander up through the fickle mizzle. I see the levelled area which will become an outdoor kitchen: it’s mud and scraped nettle root and it makes my heart boom YES THIS IS IT! We walk to the top field to admire the yellow digger, the huge blue tra
Read more

The Silly Ones

Image
After six months or so of diary reports that make the speed of progress indelibly clear- slow, edging around various constraints, meshed with life in general, savoured, scary, and delightful- I am whittling reportage to (mainly, anyway, one must be wary of making rash promises) a series of snapshots from our land journey. I want to focus on the specifics of bringing a dream to life- I want to bring you, Dear Reader, closer to the process. I want to share. So come with me, and Mr, and our wonky arthritic but otherwise healthy-happy Dog, and feel free to chortle as we set up camp in the stable on a June night. The day has been glorious, summery, hot. The stable is cool, dusty underfoot. There is still a roll of dung in each corner, dried like cement. There are mouseholes, ratholes, old spiderwebs thick as ropes. There is sunlight sneaking through the gaps, there is a calmness here, there is birdsong and a swoop of wind through leaves. We fix our camping mattresses on top of the sofa
Read more

Bunting And Butts

Image
14/5/22 Saturday I am at work. Hydrotherapy on a warm spring day leaves us relaxed like rag dolls. Washing is pegged and dried on the line. I had to add extra water to the lupin which appeared to have fainted. All the pots are well mulched but they dry out anyway. Luckily the maintenance is pleasing. I tell the plants how beautiful they are, and taste-test the mint. Mr is out at Paddock Garden cutting up felled trees and clearing nettles to make compost tea while Dog slumbers in the stable. 15/5/22 Sunday I peg washing on the line before leaving for work; as I start the car a light shower also begins. Goodbye washing, enjoy your second rinse! At work we have a mission of putting together some jubilee planters, so we scour the garden department at Homebase for red, white, and blue blooms. I have mixed feelings about the jubilee, partly because the world is on fire and that seems more important. I’m neither a royalist nor a hater. It was good to have a Queen when I was growing up, she w
Read more